


Pretty Little Nightmare

by QuagmireMarch



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Enabled by Waffle, Gen, Horror-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuagmireMarch/pseuds/QuagmireMarch
Summary: Based on the Kuchisake-onna urban legend. A very young Yuri reaches out to the sister he lost.
Relationships: Katsuki Mari & Katsuki Yuuri
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Urban Legends on Ice





	Pretty Little Nightmare

Moonlight glittered against the surface of the onsen. This late at night no customers dared brave the night-misted steam. Too many secrets hid in its folds. Too many men gone missing. Too much blood shed when memories hung heavy in the air.

Yuri, barefoot and shaking, had used all his five-year-old courage to get this far. Now, he trembled, clinging to the door frame, foot barely on the edge of the threshold that would take him from inside to outside. From safe to vulnerable.

Something shifted in the water. A quiet splash.

  
He almost ran, almost dropped the plate of cookies he’d worked so hard on with kaa-san. He fibbed and said he wanted to give them to his friends at school. Yuri didn’t have any friends. All the other kids avoided him because of the stories about nee-san. They said his family was cursed.

  
Yuri didn’t need them anyway. He had his parents and skating and tonight he’d finally meet nee-san. If the stories were true at least. He hoped they were. It was awful that Mari died, but most people didn’t get to know family that were gone, so Yuri thought they were kind of lucky she came back every year.

He just hoped this year she wouldn’t hurt anyone. That maybe she’d be less mad if he shared his cookies with her, and then she’d be happy and kaa-san and tou-san wouldn’t cry anymore.

Clutching his plate tighter, Yuri screwed his eyes closed and shuffled forward. He felt the warmer air of the hot springs curl around him. Heard the dripping of water as someone stepped out of the water. Someone he knew hadn’t been there before he closed his eyes.

He cracked one eye open slowly. At first, he didn’t see anything, just the white fog of too much steam, but then like something clicking in his head, she was there kneeling in front of him. She wore one of the robes of the inn, her hair in a white bandanna that matched the mask on her face. Except the one on her face was all dirty, spotted and stained like she’d spilled chocolate on it.

A shiver went up Yuri’s spine as she reached out, her fingertips not quite brushing his cheek, but making him cold anyway.

“He said I was pretty,” she whispered, voice so soft Yuri almost thought it was the wind. But nothing moved. “Do you think I’m pretty, Yuri?”

Frozen, Yuri couldn’t speak. So, he held out his plate instead, a silent offering.

The woman—Mari – he reminded himself, tilted her head and looked at the cookies.

She seemed confused, so Yuri fought through his fear to find words. “For you.” It sounded squeaky and too loud.

“Yuri.” Long and low, a moaning cry. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Tears pooled at the corner of Yuri’s eyes. She sounded so _sad_. He just wanted to make it better. To protect her like a good brother. Like he would have if he’d been born before all the bad things happened. He put the plate down and nudged it towards her. “I made these for you.”

Mari kept staring, eyes dark as the place in Yuri’s closet he never wanted to look at. But, he looked at her. Couldn’t look away even as his heart raced and his body quivered with the need to run away. His sister _needed_ him.  
  
He stayed. As the woman reached long, skeletal fingers to her face and removed the mask, as the slit of her mouth that spread from ear-to-ear was revealed, as that slit opened to reveal rows and rows of needle sharp teeth, Yuri stayed.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” The woman hissed, the sound coming from the mist around them, echoing against the stone tiles, reverberating like a half-remembered nightmare in Yuri’s head.

Yuri reached out, his chubby little fingers resting on the seam that split Mari’s face. “I don’t care if you’re pretty or not. You’re my nee-san, and I love you.”

Those long, deathly fingers moved, grazed Yuri’s hand where he touched the woman. And then dropped away, taking a cookie from the plate. She ate slowly, eyes never leaving Yuri.

In the morning Yuri’s parents found him curled up by the onsen, an empty plate at his side and a white bandanna in clutched in his hands.

They didn’t ask how he got there, just clutched him tight, thankful for his soft breaths and beating heart as they carried him back to safety inside.


End file.
